“There are a number of possible reasons for the loss of communications, among them the increasing severity of Hurricane Joaquin”.
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The forecast track for Hurricane Joaquin remains highly uncertain Thursday, but it is becoming certain that North Carolina will see very heavy rain from today through at least Saturday.
Joaquin will continue to batter the central Bahamas with hurricane force winds, storm surge and heavy rain through tonight.
The Coast Guard said it had received its last satellite communication with the ship around 7:30 a.m. Thursday. Rescue workers searched for a missing cargo ship with 33 aboard off the Bahamas yesterday as Hurricane Joaquin battered the island chain, bringing life in the popular tourist destination to a drastic halt. “People are all getting ready, shuttering up their houses, going to the store for plywood”, said Chris Gosling who runs a voluntary ambulance service in Eleuthera, population 8,000.
Forecasters said it appeared the hurricane itself would pass well off the East Coast. The crew had reported the ship previously took on water, but that the flooding had been contained. Hurricane and tropical storm conditions are also expected over portions of the northwestern Bahamas on Friday.
“This vessel is disabled basically right near the eye of Hurricane Joaquin“, said Capt Mark Fedor. Despite forecasts showing the impending Hurricane Joaquin may move out to sea and not directly strike New Jersey, crews along the shore were nonetheless taking precautions against flooding from a wind and rainstorm that preceded Joaquin and that was causing a few flooding in southern New Jersey on Friday.
It says the saturation of the ground after heavy rainfall this week means there is a risk of flooding if it does track across land. Hyde County, North Carolina, lifted a mandatory evacuation order for Ocracoke Island but said visitors would be barred. There had been no reports of fatalities or injuries, said Capt Stephen Russell, the director of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Residents reached by relatives said they were “trapped in their homes, and reported feeling as if their structures were caving in”, Russell told the Associated Press. Many of our computer models are really all over the place with where it goes from there. However, there will still be strong surf along the Mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States coast, causing beach erosion.
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The third hurricane of the 2015 Atlantic season, Joaquin was about 70km south of San Salvador island in the Bahamas, with maximum sustained winds of 215km/h, the NHC said.
